The Dare
by Do the fandango
Summary: Ron and Harry dare Hermione to get close to Professor Snape. She starts to do it just to prove she can, but she begins to grow quite fond of him. Rated PG-13 for now.


Chapter one: Default chapter  
  
[A.N. I'm borrowing that idea that Martian Aries had. Not her characters, just the idea of having a quote pertaining to each chapter at the beginning. Martian Aries, you're a god. Also, I do not own most of these characters, and I definitely do not own the Harry Potter series. That would be J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers. I only own the people that I decide to make along the way to make the story interesting enough to keep writing. On with the story!]  
  
"If you don't daydream and kind of plan things out in your imagination, you never get there. So you have to start someplace."  
  
-Robert Duvall  
  
Hermione gazed out the window of her third floor dormitory, focusing on nothing in general. It was snowing, as was often the case at Hogwarts in December. Christmas was in three days, and still she had bought her friends nothing. She was too depressed to shop.  
  
She wondered to herself why Professor Snape was as cold as.well, the weather outside. He wouldn't let anyone close to him, and that disturbed her in unimaginable ways.  
  
It was really all Harry and Ron's fault. Wasn't it always? They had bet her 30 galleons each that she couldn't get Professor Snape to thaw by Easter. It seemed she was the only one who thought it wrong that they were regarding their Potions master as a kind of freeze-burned meat. Ron and Harry were, however, able to convince her to go through with the bet after a very childish argument in which she was called a 'stiff' and 'chicken' on more than one occasion. A week later, she had still made no headway.  
  
That day, the trio had double potions with the Slytherins. The class was two hours away, and she had no plan yet as to what she was going to do.  
  
Somehow, in a week she had grown quite partial to Snape. This is something she had thought would never happen to her, yet here it was, happening. She saw nothing wrong with him now, apart from the apparent quality he had of being a jerk.  
  
The way his mind worked was so sexy she had decided. She had also decided he wasn't half bad looking. It seemed kind of strange to be thinking of Snape in that sense.  
  
Parvati's entrance to the dormitory interrupted her thoughts.  
  
"Hermione, you will never guess who asked me to go to Hogsmeade this weekend with them!" squealed Parvati excitedly.  
  
Hermione very nearly jumped, but gained her composure at just the right time and turned calmly around. "Who would that be?" she asked, nonchalantly.  
  
"Oh my gosh, it was.Seamus! He's so cute, you know! And he said that if you doubled with us, we could all go and get a butterbeer at The Three Broomsticks." The girl was grinning from ear to ear as though this were the most exciting thing that had ever happened at Hogwarts.  
  
"Well, sorry Parvati.but I'm not going to Hogsmeade," Hermione started lying as she began to hatch up a genius plan to win her bet. "I'm staying here to make my Potions essay about a roll and a half of parchment longer than it is. I have it a roll longer than he asked already, but he doesn't like Gryffindor much, so I decided to make it better."  
  
"I don't think you should take all that time just to make something for that man. He's a queer anyway, it's not like it matters. He's going to give Slytherin the high marks, and you're going to be stuck somewhere near the top.but not really at the top. I personally think you should just tell him to bugger off and go about your business." Parvati told her very matter-of- factly.  
  
"I can't just tell him to 'bugger off'." Hermione said irritably. "I'm not going, so you can 'bugger off'. I am not in the mood to argue. I have to make my essay good, so go have a good time with Seamus tomorrow and leave me out of it please."  
  
"Well." Parvati said indignantly, and turned on her heel and left.  
  
Hermione's mood was not improved in the least with this, but at least now she had begun to have a plan. The next day was the day when third years and above went to Hogsmeade. Those too young to go to Hogsmeade were having a party outside on the grounds, and Professors Snape, McGonagall, and Sinistra were required to stay.  
  
Hermione's plan was to ask Snape for help on her essay which she had purposely redone to be horrible.believably hers, yet poorly researched. She would talk to him about the essay, then ask him how he knew so much about the subject. Hopefully, he would say something not horribly sarcastic, and she would be able to begin to get him right where she wanted him. However, if he were to say something sarcastic, she would play along. Not get annoyed. Somehow, that seemed like it would actually work well for once. By Easter, he would be all hers. She liked the sound of that.  
  
On the way down to potions class, she was slightly distracted. She wondered if Snape would suspect what she was up to. He had a way of seeing right through people. Her essay was awful. Though her plan didn't really take action until the next day, she was terrified that he would stop it as soon as she started it.  
  
Hermione took her usual seat next to Ron. Harry was beside them, sitting with Seamus. Nothing seemed amiss yet. There was no way he could suspect anything was out of the ordinary.  
  
"Please take out your homework so I can look at it." Snape told the class, getting out his quill and bottle of red ink.  
  
He walked around the class, looking at papers and slashing viciously at parchments with his red pen, showing great enthusiasm at the slashes placed on papers of Gryffindors. He got to Hermione last as she sat in the corner of the room.  
  
"Ah, Miss.Granger. Another overly researched paper with much more than I requested from the insufferable know-it-all I suspect." Snape said as he picked up her paper.  
  
After the first paragraph, his eyebrows were in danger of disappearing into his hairline. Slowly, an evil smirk began to play upon his face.  
  
"Miss Granger, this will not do at all. Half marks if that, I'm not even done yet. I think that Mr. Potter had a more deeply researched paper."  
  
Hermione lowered her eyes as if ashamed. "I-I'm sorry Professor. I-I tried. I really did try. It was really hard. I couldn't find the answers."  
  
Snape rolled his eyes. "Well, since this is your first display of horrible workmanship, I am forced to meet with you and fix it so that you might make full marks."  
  
Hermione tried to look as scared as possible, although inside she was jumping with joy. "Tomorrow please. I really want to know what I did wrong."  
  
"Very well then. Tomorrow at noon. You won't be going to Hogsmeade as a result." He said, also jumping with joy inside.  
  
Trying hard to look aggravated, Hermione muttered "Right." And then as he walked away, purposely said under her breath, "Bugger."  
  
Snape paused a moment, contemplating whether or not to take points from Gryffindor. He decided not to. He'd deal with her tomorrow. 


End file.
